Indignation in Italy at the release of a mafioso …

Italy was shocked on Tuesday by the release of the assassin of judge Giovanni Falcone, which occurred in 1992. Giovanni Brusca, 64, is released for good behavior. He had been detained since 1996 and during his incarceration he agreed to cooperate with the authorities.

Brusca benefits from a law that reduces the punishment to those who collaborate with Justice, and which had Falcone among its main defenders. He will remain on probation for the next four years.

“This is news that hurts me as a person, but it is the law, a law that my brother wanted and which must be respected”, reacted the sister of the judge, María Falcone, in statements to the newspaper. The Republic.

Giovanni Falcone was investigating the Mafia and was murdered on May 23, 1992 when the car he was driving in exploded on the outskirts of Palermo, on the island of Sicily.. His wife and three bodyguards died with the magistrate. The crime shook Italy. Salvatore Riina, strongman of Cosa Nostra, gave the order that Brusca carried out.

Tina Montinaro, widow of one of the bodyguards, showed her “indignation” at the release of Brusca. “Twenty-nine years later, we still don’t know the truth and the man who destroyed my family is free,” he said. The mob was not satisfied with the crime of Falcone and Two months later, another judge whose investigations hampered Cosa Nostra, Paolo Borsellino, took place.

On May 20, 1996, Brusca, known as the Scannacristiani (the Christian killer) and also U’Verru (the pig, in Sicilian), which spent the last quarter of a century collaborating behind bars with various judicial processes. His link with the Mafia is hereditary: he took his father’s place when he was arrested, and grew up under the wing of Totò Riina.

When he was arrested, Brusca admitted responsibility for more than 150 murders and was unable to remember the names of his victims. One of the crimes he was convicted of was the kidnapping and death of an eleven-year-old boy named Giuseppe Di Matteo, the son of a repentant mafia. Brusca strangled the boy and dissolved the body in acid.

Now that he is free, the entire political arc joins him in criticizing his release. “A punch in the stomach that leaves you speechless,” said former Prime Minister and Democratic Party leader Enrico Letta. For his part, the extreme right Matteo Salvini, of the Northern League, defined Brusca as “a beast” and estimated that “he cannot get out of prison”.